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I was drenched in sweat, laboring away at the Eliptical at my gym last night, while at the same time, via the local news, bearing witness to the awful flooding in the TriState area, courtesy of x amount of inches of rain brought on by Irene. Main streets and side streets equally inundated with water that had nowhere to go, and power turned off as a consequence. Or, elsewhere, in parts of Long Island, simply no power, period.

After my hour of cardio on an electricity-powered machine - one of about, oh, twenty - I descended into the locker room, where I was jumped by a wall of noise caused by two flatscreen TVs blaring at full volume and second rate hiphop, pumped through the gym-wide sound system. And then the sheer wastefulness of this - apparently completely normal - way of doing things without regard for the consequences hit me. I know, I know. Small peanuts. A couple of TVs and a sound system - so what? But do they really have to be on AT THE SAME TIME? SET TO DIFFERENT CHANNELS? And I know that my wimpy efforts at conserving energy in Manhattan will very likely not help anybody in New Jersey get their power back. But it shaves a sliver off of my guilt at living in such overflowing abundance, when, just across the river, whole towns are left in the dark for yet anther night.

Age-defying creams, make-up, injections, chemical peels, laser treatments infra-red light exposure and on and on and on...
What is so terrible about looking one's age? Why the obsession with "defying" the aging process? I've got news for you: you can't.
But we get so inundated - or more bombarded with messages to the contrary (Buy this, use that, inject that) that we are wholly and thoroughly distracted from the things that give meaning to our lives. Maybe I'm just speaking for myself here. But I for one feel that I simply don't have the time or head space to dedicate myself to a sisyphusian uphill-battle that would only pull me away from the more important, urgent, business of creating. There. I now have created a blog obsessing about the very thing I pledged not to obsess about. I am stopping now. Nuf said.

Yes, it's done. At least the recording part. Now comes the usual, mixing, mastering, what should we call this thing, and whose CD is it anyway? Oh, and let's not forget the COVER! Moody dark ECM landscape? Me in a risque outfit with a santa hat? A frog wearing a santa hat in an alien landscape, with three spaceships in the background and stonehenge to the left, with a speech bubble saying, "Kiss me, I'm Santa"?Ah, the possibilities are endless.

Be sure to check back for the end result. Maybe we'll just call it "The Green Album".